This application is in response to RFA-HS-04-010, a THQIT planning grant. It is entitled "Linking Rural Providers to Improve Patient Care and Health" and has as its major objective the development of a comprehensive plan to enable the sharing of health information between three HIT partners: a local acute care hospital and associated medical group; the county health department; and the local behavioral health organization. These three organizations currently have separate health record systems and share patient information via a paper system. The specific aim of the project is to plan the development of a central Electronic Health Record (EHR) system that will afford the sharing of health information between the organizations incorporating recently adopted standards-based data sharing. To effect this plan, there will be four task forces: 1) a legal task force to create a HIPAA compliant plan that will permit the transfer of protected health information; 2) a clinical task force that will delineate information to be transferred, access parameters, authorization parameters, and staff training plans; 3) an administrative task force that will develop [unreadable] project funding plans; and 4) a technical task force that will develop the specific hardware, software, and networking plans to affect the sharing of information. The ultimate goal of the project is to provide [unreadable] coordination of quality and safe health care services for disparate groups within the county (rural [unreadable] economically disadvantaged, ethnic/racial minority residents, and older and younger persons with special/complex health care needs). [unreadable] [unreadable]